Director: Mart van den Heuvel
Writer: Mart van den Heuvel
Cast: Glenn Tordeurs
Running time: 8mins
I’ve lived with mild inclinations to OCD for as long as I can remember. That has largely manifested itself in a need to do things symmetrically. If I scuff one shoe on the pavement while walking, the desire to ‘even it out’ by doing the same to the other side will quickly manifest. The same compulsion surfaces if I scratch one hand, or even if I just wink.
I’m no expert, and I’ve never sought professional guidance – but like so many of the compulsive behaviours we pick up in our daily lives, I figure it stems from feeling like I lack control in my daily life. To some degree, I’ve been able to make my peace with that – there are aspects of life which we are never going to be able to control, and trying to control them would ultimately drive me to despair. But since my ticks remain in spite of that, to some extent, one of those aspects is going to be my own body.
There are notably much more extreme cases of OCD, one of which is at the centre of I Must Go On. Mart van den Heuvel’s short gives an intense insight into living with the condition – as its nameless protagonist (played by the excellent Glenn Tordeurs) sees his life unravel, in spite of increasingly rigorous, ritualistic routine.
The film’s opening places the camera observing the main character from above; delivering an omnipotent, controlling view, glowering down upon the struggles of Tordeurs. DOP Mick van Zetten almost seems to be letting us in on a cruel, divine joke; with his lens showing us an all-powerful Gods-eye-view of a flawed and powerless mortal, who he created for his own amusement.
No sooner has Tordeurs washed and dried his hands at the impeccably clean faucet, then he frustratedly returns, knowing there is nothing more to be done, but doomed to do it anyway. As the sequence unfolded, I found myself simultaneously bored and disturbed – something which captures the mundane displeasure of OCD pretty well as far as I can tell.
There was a potential for the entire film to have been that set-up. As an experimental examination of the condition, it might have worked – but I am intensely grateful that this is not the film Van den Heuvel ends up delivering. Partly because I think the people who will understand it first-hand will need a little space to really process our feelings. But also, because those viewers who won’t know this experience will need a little more diversity in visuals to carry them along, and help them empathise with a condition that is more often the butt of a joke than something taken seriously in mainstream culture.
As the story progresses, we see more of Tordeurs’ relentless routine, in a well-edited montage. But while the behaviour might have emerged as a way of glossing over a lack of control in his life, it only enables him to paper over the cracks for so long. At the end of each day, at a time when he finally feels able to turn the lights out for the hundredth time, and rest, he finds himself confronted with a new problem – one that no amount of hand-washing, door-closing can help to address. A very literal hole is emerging in his garden – perhaps a manifestation of the lack of fulfilment in his life he is trying to gloss over by taking obsessive control of his habits – and whatever he does, he cannot fill it. While this climactic sequence does hurry through the process, to the extent it’s not really clear what the final moments are supposed to depict, the overall message still seems clear.
The things we cannot accept most often consume us. As the hole in Tordeurs’ garden continues to frustrate him, the tone of the film steadily grows to represent a horror film. And like Saturation – a film which addressed insomnia through the medium of an experimental shocker – Van den Heuvel’s production pulls that off in a way which is appropriately disquieting, without ever collapsing into exploitative hyperbole.
I expect that is because of the director’s own experiences living with OCD. While they might have helped to make a film that handles the subject very well, however, it can’t have made things easy for him in the production. Obsessive compulsive tendencies are hard enough to manage in daily life – but in the pressure cooker of making a movie – where directors are stereotypically expected to preside over every tiny detail of production – it must be a uniquely hellish experience.
To that end, I would like to close by noting the director’s note, attached to this submission. He notes, “It’s not perfect, there’s a few technical things we had to hide in the edit and it was a long way to getting it to its current state, but the message and story I want to convey are there and that’s something I can only be happy about.”
That’s an encouragingly healthy approach to filmmaking – and to life. Perfectionism will eat us alive, OCD or not – and can hold us back from expressing ourselves, or living a happy life. The only antidote is to find take pride in whatever we do, warts and all. There’s a lot to be proud of in I Must Go On.